+ High quality product or service -- Remember, it’s your reputation that is on
the line (and online!). Don’t recommend products that UNDERdeliver.
+ Merchant has a good site that sells effectively.
+ Ability for affiliate to link straight to individual products, rather than just to
the home page. (If the visitor has to find the product that you recommend, your
Conversion Rate plummets.)
+ Type of payment model... Pay-per-sale and pay-per-lead are good. This is
true “performance marketing.” If your referred visitor delivers the desired
response, you get paid. What about “pay-per-click?” See red flags below.
+ Affiliate Support...
• Accurate, reliable, real-time, online accounting, preferably with some kind of
ability to “audit” by spot-checking
• Detailed traffic and linking stats
• Notification by e-mail when a sale is made
• Useful marketing assistance -- provides traffic-building and sales-getting tools
• High-quality newsletter that educates, trains, and accounts for amounts
earned
• Professional marketing materials available
• Affiliates receive discount on products
+ Pays good commission -- Hard goods have lower margins than digital ones
so their commissions will be lower. Still, you should make at least 10% (hard
goods) or 20% (digital goods) on any product that you recommend. Don’t be
scared off by low-priced products if they offer a good % commission -- the lower
dollar value per sale is offset by the higher sales volume.
+ Must be free (no charge) to join, no need to buy the product.
+ Lifetime commission -- If the program pays a commission on future sales of
other products to customers that you refer, this is a huge plus.
+ Two-tier commission -- If the program pays a commission on affiliates who
join because of you, this is also great.
+ Lifetime cookie -- Do you receive a commission if the person you referred
returns and buys within one month? Three months? The cookie that tracks this
should not expire.
+ Restriction on number of affiliates -- You won’t find many of these. But if
you do find one, grab it.
+ Monthly payment, with reasonable minimum.
Do all those plus signs have to be present? No. But the more, the merrier.
Minus signs are definite detractors. Naturally, if you are unable to give a + to
any of the criteria listed just above, consider its absence to be a minus. And
watch out for these negative factors...
— Slow and/or poor support.
— Unethical conduct of any kind.
— Reports of late (or lack of) payments.
— Allowing spam, or seeming to send spam themselves.
— Defective affiliate-joining process. Hey, if they can’t get this right...
— Clauses in the agreement that you find unacceptable.
• Example -- If lifetime customers are important to you, then a clause that allows
unilateral termination or modification of the agreement at any time by the
company without just cause effectively makes the lifetime commitment of no
value.
• Example -- No exclusivity (i.e., you should be allowed to represent more than
one book vendor).